The Grammar of Violence, Writing Crime as Fiction

This essay traces the author's narrative journey towards an understanding of violent crime in post-apartheid South Africa. Her five crime fiction novels explore the intimate effect of physical and emotional pain that the individual and society suffer as a result of violent crime. In other words, the author has attempted to interpret the ‘grammar’ of violence, in particular violence against the female body, and in so doing, she has also sought to inscribe a ‘grammar’ of her own through the writing of crime fiction. However, at this stage of the journey the author is ambivalent and discomfited by the ethical implications of representing South Africa's violent crimes through fiction.